Horn of Africa

In the Horn of Africa, Somali clan linkages across the state borders of Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia mean that conflicts cannot be resolved in isolation. We work to support local, national and cross-border peacebuilding initiatives and structures in the region, as well as supporting the peace process in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia.

Mediation and dialogue support in the Ogaden region in Ethiopia

The Somali Regional State (Ogaden) in Ethiopia has been at the centre of instability in the Horn of Africa for over two decades. Since 1994, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) has fought an armed insurgency against the Government of Ethiopia. This conflict threatens the stability, security and development prospects of Ethiopia. Formal negotiations under the auspices of the Government of Kenya are being conducted in an on-off fashion.

Since 2012, at the request of the Kenyan government team facilitating peace talks between the Government of Ethiopia and the ONLF, we have provided technical assistance to the facilitators and support to the peace process.

This technical assistance has included encouraging a commitment to pursuing exclusively nonviolent strategies, providing training in preparing for negotiations and the wider peace process, and drawing on relevant international comparative experiences. We have also supported a series of dialogue meetings with members of the diaspora community to assist them in defining their analysis of, and responses to, the conflict that has displaced them. This encourages their support for the Kenyan-led peace talks and their own participation in building peace in the region.

Local, national and cross-border peacebuilding in northern Kenya

Northern Kenya has a long history of ethnic conflict, violence and marginalisation. New conflict drivers and dynamics related to devolution, terrorism and resource extraction are exacerbating existing communal and locally based tensions and raising new challenges for traditional peacebuilding structures, impacting their effectiveness and resilience.

We work to strengthen community-level, national and cross-border peacebuilding in Garissa County – an area which experiences multiple conflict challenges. Here, we provide support to local peace committees (LPCs) and provide connections between government and county officials and the community-led peace structures. We also support local and county peace stakeholders to deal with cross-border conflicts.

LPC members, including women, youth, elders and religious leaders, are receiving training in peacebuilding skills and conflict management. The project is also supporting these LPCs to work more effectively with county and national government as well as advocate for the inclusion of peacebuilding work in county government plans.

A peace and development conference we convened in Nairobi brought together diverse sectors of society from the Ogaden region – including elders, intellectuals, business people, diaspora, refugees, religious leaders, women and youth. The aim of the conference was to solicit different opinions and discuss solutions to the conflict. As a result of the conference and prior consultations, a committee was formed which has been engaging with the conflict parties and the Kenyan Government facilitating the Ogaden peace talks, to feed perspectives of the participants into the formal peace process.

In Kenya, through support to local peace committees and religious leaders, we contributed to the de-escalation of post-election violence in Garissa township. We convened a forum which brought together religious leaders, elders, the media, government officials, youth and women to discuss how to prevent and respond to election violence and agree on common peace messages. The messages were preached during and immediately after the elections through mosques and churches in hotspot areas. Alongside this, a social media campaign and a public statement instructed voters, electoral officials and political leaders on how to ensure free, fair and violence-free elections.

Because we are constantly talking with communities, ethnic clashes have reduced. We have brought together clans who have never been brought together before, because of age-old differences. Now they live like brothers and sisters.